The long, agonizing elections for Governor of Florida and junior Senator from the Sunshine State are finally over, and Republican Ron DeSantis is now officially the Governor-elect and Republican Rick Scott is now the Senator-elect.

But neither of them would have prevailed had they not been willing, and at least minimally prepared, to fight to preserve their Election Day wins against the well-organized Democrat plans to steal the election through post-Election Day fraud.

The general election campaign between DeSantis and Gillum was the first real test of a Republican who wholeheartedly embraced Trumpism and a Democrat who embraced the new Far-Left Democratic Party of billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros.

Fortunately, DeSantis prevailed, but not before Soros and Steyer poured millions into organizing the state for the Democrats and building up an impressive infrastructure to turn out every Progressive vote they could identify – or manufacture.

As Ana Ceballos reported for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, a day after Florida's election left the top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state's deadline.

The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties complete a required recount in three top races, reported Ceballos.

But, says Ceballos, an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida showed that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a "cure affidavit," that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.

One Palm Beach Democrat said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.

Thousands of defective provisional ballots and ballots from ineligible voters were turned in in a well-organized plan to sow chaos on Election Day and set-up a scenario where liberal judges could, post-Election rewrite Florida’s election laws and hand the state to the Democrats.

The Republican establishment always seems to be caught unawares when Democrats try to lawyer themselves into victory in elections that they lost on Election Day. GOP leaders always act like this is the first time they’ve seen what every conservative knows is going to happen.

Democrats will “find” ballots, Democrats will sue to have illegal or defective votes counted and they will do everything possible to “lose,” disqualify or destroy Republican ballots – this is not a conspiracy theory, it is history.

The only reason that didn’t happen is because Scott and DeSantis were prepared to fight to preserve their victories on Election Day and after.

While some conservatives criticized Governor Scott for not removing Brenda Snipes, Broward County’s Supervisor of Elections, after a lawsuit revealed she illegally destroyed ballots after the 2016 election, Scott’s response to Snipes’ actions in 2018 was forceful and timely.

Contrast that with the flaccid response from Republicans in other jurisdictions, such as California, where Democrat post-election “vote finding” resulted in almost a dozen Election Day winners being deprived of their victories.

On the eve of the 2016 presidential election we said if Trump wins Florida, he will win the presidency. Republicans and conservative-populists must understand that, more than any other 2018 election, the 2020 presidential election is at stake in Florida. The aim of Steyer, Soros and their network of Far-Left megadonors wasn’t just electing another progressive governor, it was putting Florida out of reach of Republican presidential candidates forever.

Thanks to Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott that didn’t happen, and the Democrats’ well-planned election fraud was not only stymied, but turned over to federal authorities for criminal investigation.